Bird’s-Eye View Ballet

Ever wanted to know what a day in the life of a ballet company is like? Well, if you’ve got three minutes to spare, you can get a bird’s-eye view of Boston Ballet’s daily routine of company class and rehearsals. MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory principal investigator David Gifford and grad student Adrian Dalca (dance + science = awesomeness) put several small cameras throughout the Boston Ballet studio to record one full day of activity. They later manipulated the footage to include time-lapse and slow-motion capture, added some Audiomachine music to get you pumped up and compressed the entire thing into just under three minutes, calling it “A Day of Grace with Boston Ballet.”

The highlights are getting to see the ballerinas’ individual warm-up routines and pointe shoe fiddlings and the gorgeous slow-motion arabesque around 1:49. And talk about the spacing perfection! Too bad every dance teacher can’t install ceiling cameras in her studio—that would be the absolute end of misshapen formations and dancers getting out of line. The video premiered on September 21 as part of the Boston Ballet Night of Stars gala, kicking off the 50th anniversary season for the company.